Our 25th entry in the 2017 Travel Highlights Competition is another excellent piece from Mark Boyter entitled A Saskatchewan Highway.

A Saskatchewan Highway

Saskatchewan. Somewhere west of Swift Current. Trans-Canada highway, hitching east. Early June. Late afternoon. Cloudless. Been walking, past dusty grain elevators and double-X railway crossings. And then behind a green awning, a white picket cafe. The screen door bell jingles, and heads turn. It’s full. Farm folk. Set my backpack at the door, take a counter stool. Coffee and cherry pie and water, please. A man takes the stool beside. Where’re you from? Where’re you going? How’re the rides? Then I see it. He has an earring too. Good luck, and then it’s the road again.

​That was good pie.

Mark Boyter

​Mark is a traveller who writes, a writer who runs, a runner who drinks, and a drinker who loves movies. On rare occasions, he is all five.From Vancouver, Canada and a teacher by training, he's lived and taught in his native Canada, Japan and the UAE.His first book, Crescent Moon Over Laos, was published in 2014. He is working on other ideas that may or may not evolve into a second book, as well as a collection of short stories.He lives in Vancouver with his long time partner and their three cats.​

That was fun, Mark. Hitchhiking was once a way of life, but not much any more. I don´t know if it is still in print (I doubt it), but if you ever stumble across "Thumbprints: An Anthology of Hitchhiking Poems", I am sure you would enjoy it. (It was published in BC, so there is some hope.)

Reply

MikeC

14/11/2017 02:16:57 am

I like this story, Syd - travelling is a different world, someplace else in and of itself independent of exactly where you are. A chance meeting well captured.